


Across the Aisle

by themayoragain



Category: Outer Banks (TV)
Genre: Alcohol, Drug Abuse, Drug Use, F/M, Mentions of Death, Political AU, Sexual Content, drug rehabilitation, politician!rafe
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-30
Updated: 2020-08-30
Packaged: 2021-03-07 01:35:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26188828
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/themayoragain/pseuds/themayoragain
Summary: Olivia Spellman is your classic rags-to-riches story; a twenty-seven-year-old living the revered American Dream. With an absent father and a single mother working her way up from the Cut to Kook status in North Carolina’s Outer Banks, Olivia knows what it’s like to work hard for what you want. She finds herself stuck in a job she hates, with more passion than she knows what to do with and a burning desire to finally make something of herself.Enter the race for North Carolina’s 3rd Congressional District. If Olivia can make it past the Democratic primary, all she needs to do is beat out a young Republican with a track record of failure – her ex-boyfriend Rafe Cameron.Olivia is determined to win, no matter what, and she knows she has her district’s best interests at heart.But Rafe Cameron, backed by his wealthy father Ward, is no stranger to fighting dirty.With a history of dark secrets uniting them, how far will the former lovers go to win?And what happens when they realise that maybe, just maybe, that spark is still there?
Relationships: Rafe Cameron/Original Female Character(s)
Kudos: 3





	Across the Aisle

Prologue

It all happened so fast.

Nothing was supposed to happen at all.

Not like this.

It was just meant to be like every other Friday night they’d spent together.

Olivia had heard that when faced with a near death experience, you’re supposed to see your life flash before your eyes. Your childhood, your loved ones, happy memories – almost like a film reel of all the experiences you took for granted that you were about to lose.

Olivia thought that sounded like bullshit. She hadn’t seen her life’s film reel as they hurtled towards the thick oak tree, no, she was too panicked to think of anything at all, too high to even really comprehend what was happening.

The group was on their way to a frat party after pre-gaming at Olivia’s apartment off campus. It was a given this pre-game involved white powder, organised into neat lines with a black American Express, a product of the company Olivia was keeping since she started college the previous fall. She hadn’t set out to join the party scene, not one to waste the opportunities her mother had worked so hard to give her, but Olivia’s boyfriend was convincing and charming, and she was in love.

Not that any of that seemed like it mattered now, since “being in love” didn’t seem like a reasonable excuse for letting someone clearly high out of his mind get behind the wheel of a Range Rover.

Olivia climbed out of the mangled wreck, hands shaking and bloody (she wasn’t sure if was hers or someone else’s), and stumbled across the bitumen, the strewn glass sparkling up at her as if were taunting her. She blinked away tears, but they fell anyway, thick and hot down her flushed cheeks. Her throat constricted as she sobbed, as she willed herself not to hyperventilate and make the situation worse.

It was a fruitless attempt, of course, as Olivia whipped her head around, panicky, looking for any signs of life from the others in the car. Of course, she could have walked back over to the garbled mess of metal and looked for herself, but she couldn’t bear it. Olivia couldn’t bear the thought of what she might see – her friends, or admittedly even worse, her boyfriend, dead.

The only clarity Olivia had was that this was undoubtedly the last time she would ever touch drugs, no matter the outcome of the night.

Olivia shoved her hand into the pocket of her jeans clumsily, the cocaine making her jittery, and was relieved to see her iPhone still worked despite the smashed screen. She dialled 911 with shaking hands, biting her lip hard enough to draw blood as she waited for them to pick up.

She answered the operator’s questions almost robotically, terrified to give herself away, but she couldn’t avoid the situation for long.

“Have you, the driver, or any of the passengers taken any illegal drugs tonight?”

Olivia was silent, before she finally answered quietly, “yes.”

“Ma’am, I can’t hear you, I’m going to have to ask you to speak up,” said the operator, who had a comforting, almost motherly tone.

It made Olivia feel even more ashamed.

She cleared her throat. “Yes, we all have,” Olivia said more clearly, her voice still raspy. She must have screamed more than she realised when they crashed.

“Okay. Do you feel safe enough to wait on the side of the road for the emergency services to arrive?”

“Yes.”

“Thank you ma’am, ambulance and police are on their way. You sit tight now.” And with a click, the operator hung up and left Olivia alone with no one else around but the car full of her friends who she couldn’t bear to look at.

The ambulance and police cars arrived soon enough, their loud sirens jolting Olivia out of her pacing alongside the road.

In a frenzied blur, paramedics were covering her in the warm foil she had only ever seen in the movies and were making their way over to the mess of a Range Rover. Olivia could do nothing but watch as they shouted, placing her friends’ bodies onto stretchers and wheeling them into the waiting ambulances.

As a black body bag was placed onto a gurney, the sound of the thick zipper reverberating inside Olivia’s skull, all she could think of was that it must have been instinct that had her reaching for Rafe’s hand in those final moments.


End file.
